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Asus Reveals the Eee Keyboard
El Lobo writes "Asus' success with its Eee line of netbooks might have come as a surprise, but the company is now determined to expand the Eee brand into every possible niche and form factor. Case in point: the insanely cool Eee Keyboard, which will surely bring a smile on the faces of those who remember the glory days of the home computer. Described as a fully functional PC with inset Qwerty key arrangement, the keyboard has a 5in touch screen that displays a suite of bespoke media controls or a Windows desktop."
This is comparable to a mini pc tucked under the TV with a wireless keyboard and/or a harmony control. The battery life and software UI on the touchpad will be critical to the success of this product.
Kind of like the EEE itself, actually. You've been able to get computers built into keyboards from specialist suppliers for ages now(not to mention the pantheon of fondly-remembered early systems in the form factor) but they aren't inexpensive and tend toward slightly dull, legacy heavy designs, which is appropriate given the usual customers for such things; but not really exciting.
This little guy, if it ever makes it to market, should be great fun to play around with(particularly if the secondary screen widget is reasonably open to hackers and third party devs). Good looking, probably fairly cheap, no doubt fairly basic specs; but enough for many purposes. I like it.
Look at the bright side. At least you could play crysis on that screen with an average video card.
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has it's limits" - Albert Einstein
"...much like many home computers from the days Back To The Future was cool".
Oh geez! I missed the memo. Back to the Future isn't cool any more? Man I'm getting old!
Anyone else read the headline and think
"Finally, a new/good keyboard for the EEE netbook."
Yo dawg we heard you like usb hard drives so we put a usb port on your usb hard drive so you can use a usb hard drive on your usb hard drive.
I already own a computer of a similar form factor. It's kitted out with a state of the art CMOS 6502 processor running at 2 MHz and a unified graphics architecture with 32K of main memory and 32K of PROM based storeage (UV erasable in about 20 minutes or so). Not only that, but it has every expansion port you might expect: parallel, TTL, composite and UHF video, RS-423, analogue, the CPU bus (just for good measure), econet (TM) networking and the innovative Tube(r) interface. Not only that but it also comes with builtin support for both audio tape and *double sided* 5.25 inch floppy disks.
Programs are available for download every night, for free, over the air with a compatible teletext input interface.
Frankly, there's no contest.
Funny anecdote: I remember reading a news story about a burglary at a school which had recently upgraded to the new, shiny Archimedes, replacing their old BBCs. The theives broke in and stole all the keyboards, not realising that the computer was now in a separate box.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
It's got USB ports, so you can easily add a second keyboard for some marathon sessions of two-player Notepad!
This guy's the limit!
it already does wireless display -- ultra wideband wireless HDMI.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.